


My only love sprung from my only hate

by CandyCanine



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sad Ending, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyCanine/pseuds/CandyCanine
Summary: Their love was forbidden, and wasn't meant to be. A Romeo&Juliet AU
Relationships: Female Courier/Vulpes Inculta
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	My only love sprung from my only hate

_~*~_   
_Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords._   
_~*~_

Jade had met the most handsome and attractive man she could ever have imagined in Nipton. At the same time, she had met the darkest soul she could ever have imagined in Nipton. And they both were a part of the same person. She had been horrified upon entering the town, appalled by the atrocities, frightened by the men who had committed them. And there, in their midst, in the heart of darkness, was him.

The moment their eyes had met, Jade had known she was doomed.

Aghast by the feelings inside her, she had barely listened, barely understood the meaning of his words, terrified to the very core of her soul by this man and what his presence did to her. But when she had fled the burning town and its ghastly remnants of the Legions’ brutal executions she realised that a piece of her had remained there. A piece of her soul, torn off and swallowed by the darkness. The darkness that was him. His eyes, although they had been almost hidden by shades, kept on haunting her in every waking hour. They kept on haunting her into her dreams. But in her dreams...

In her dreams, these eyes were warm, not cold. His lips were soft and no thin, cruel line. His hands were not stained with blood. His words were no maddened chant of bloodlust, cruelty and war.  
He whispered her name, their naked bodies entangled by the firelight, their lips claiming each other’s in gentle passion. And they would join their bodies, roll into the fire, and be consumed by the flames both outside and within them.

She awoke in tears every time, because every time that fire inside her was still burning as she had no means to slake it. Every time she awoke in tears because she knew how wrong it was to be feeling like this towards a man like him. She knew. Help it, she could not.

The worst part, almost the worst part was, that she could ease her mind with no one. No matter how many friends she found, how many confidants she could have anywhere, this was something she could entrust to no one. Because no one would ever understand how she could have fallen in love with such an evil man as him. No one, not even herself. Yet was this love? Or was it not merely a misleading kind of lust originating in some tainted part of her traitorous body?

And yet, she did not only lust for him. In her dreams, her love would make him see the wrongs of his ways, make him turn away from his path of evil, would make him forswear the false idols he worshipped. But was this love? Wanting to save a soul? Or was she only wishing to save his soul so she could enjoy his body in good conscience? She had always only ever tried to do the right thing, yet this was so wrong that no one could ever know. No one must ever know. Of course she knew that no mortal was without failure, and no one could be safe from making mistakes. But this was so dark a secret she was afraid that once it got known, if anyone found out, then everyone who had ever put their trust in her would turn away from her, leaving her shunned, hated and alone.

Jade knew that nothing could save her. When she had met him again, on the Strip at night with the stars fading into nonexistence against the bright and garish lights, she had believed to have seen a flicker in his eyes, a hint of emotion that seemed to correspond to her own, speak to her on a level she couldn’t fathom, and yet she was sure she had only imagined it. A man such as he could never suffer from the same wrong and impure infatuation. And yet...

  
And yet she had seen it in his eyes. As if their souls had touched for a fraction of a second, two sides of a coin, two edges of a blade. Light and darkness. Darkness and light.  
But there is no light without the darkness. And there is no darkness without the light.

He was her heart’s greatest desire. And her soul’s darkest secret.

_~*~_   
_My only love sprung from my only hate; too early unknown and known too late._   
_~*~_

  
He had never allowed himself a weakness. Never since the day the Legion had executed his parents before his eyes, proving their worthlessness even to his own childish mind. He had grown up strong in mind and in body, shied from no pain and no ordeal until his body and soul were made from steel, his mind the edge of a blade, had shed every weakness. He knew the right path. People who failed to see had to be forced to do so, or be eliminated so their tainted weakness could spread no further.

And then he had met her, and all his will of mind and body had suddenly received a blow he felt himself unable to recover from. As if he had received a poisoned wound that would fester no matter how many times he would cauterize it with the hot iron of his will. And for the first time in his life Vulpes Inculta was confronted with a feeling that he could not master, something that had taken hold of him like a curse.

The way she had looked at him had been no different than how countless other women had looked at him. Appalled. Afraid. Terrified. If these looks had ever caused any kind of feeling inside him it was a mild satisfaction of seeing them put in their place, a certain righteousness due to being stronger and better than them.  
The look she had given him had caused him a deeply stinging unease, like a needle, no, more like a blade, a fine, narrow, golden dagger that she had buried up to the hilt into his heart with those silver-grey eyes of hers.

Of course she had refused to see his point, would not believe in the world being divided in the strong and the weak who were doomed by the weakness inside their minds and bodies, weakness that they nourished and cherished until it corrupted every fibre of their being.

  
Believed in equity, charity, helping the weak to betterment instead of damning them for their own weakness. Sometimes he wished he could make her see. And yet... what would that achieve? She had no place at his side. The Legion had no place for women. The best she could be was his favourite concubine, and strangely, it was not enough. Yet she could never stand at his side, no matter if she would see his point, embraced his ways, which she wouldn’t, of course, as little as he could lower himself to believe that every weakling, every bug, and every piece of crawling crap inhabiting the Mojave deserved a chance at betterment. She could as little take her place at his side as he could take a place at hers.

He had thought about sending a troop out, not to assassinate her but to capture her, bring her to him so he could slake his lust and put her out of his mind. He had never done so. The thought of forcing himself on her filled him with an unease and discomfort he could not fathom, a scruple he had never before felt towards any woman who had been striking his fancy. He could admit it only to himself, but even so not willingly: He wanted her to want him too. And that would not happen.

And he still had to keep appearances. No one must ever know. If anyone learned of his weakness he would lose his position as the Caesar’s Trusted. And an untrustworthy man has no place in the Legion, either. No one must ever know about that dagger in his heart. A dagger that she had taken by the hilt and twisted it around the second time they had met, on the Strip at night. Something in her eyes had spoken to him then, as if, for a second, they both had recognised in the other something that would leave them forever unfulfilled if it remained unclaimed.

He knew it was impossible for her to ever feel something other than terror and revulsion, but in that split second their eyes had met their souls had touched across the abyss their bodies would never breach.

  
And the dagger in his heart suddenly made him vulnerable. Suddenly, he was weak because he was afraid. Afraid she would lose. Afraid of seeing her die on the cross. He had never been afraid before, certainly not for someone else, but the thought of her being nailed to a cross turned his very bones to ice. And no one could ever know.

She was his heart’s greatest desire. And his soul’s darkest secret.

_~*~_   
_Then I defy you, stars!_   
_~*~_

He followed her for months to come. His order was to find out what her plans were, and for the first time ever he did not exactly follow orders. He found out about her plans easily enough, yet he did not return to Caesar immediately once he knew. He kept on following her, at her heels like a shadow cast by her light, always hidden in the darkness, hidden from her eyes and hating himself for it. But he could not come out openly before her because she was never alone, and being caught or killed would have jeopardized more than only his espionage mission.

But there came this one night when he caught her alone. She and her pathetic companions had taken shelter in an old, abandoned, ramshackle hut nestled into a hollow at the side of a hill, ridiculously close to the Legion’s safe house and Nipton. As he watched her leave the hut he followed, low on the ground, as she topped the rise and descended into another hollow towards a small lake.

Almost carelessly she settled down at the water’s edge, her knees drawn up, her arms slung around them, her hair stirring in the breeze. The stars were mirrored in the still surface of the water, dark like beaten lead in the moonless night.

  
He edged a little closer, watching her profile in the dim light of the stars. Closer yet, and she still gave no sign she was aware of him. It was almost impossible she would be so lost in her thoughts, all alone here in the night, unless...

  
He stood up, and she still didn’t move. Unless she was aware of his presence, after all. He unsheathed his dagger and stepped closer, kneeling down behind her. She still didn’t acknowledge his presence with so much as the blink of an eye. He slowly reached around her and laid the edge of the blade against her throat.

  
She neither moved nor spoke.

“You need to leave the path you have chosen”, he finally hissed into her ear, and she shuddered. “It will lead only to your death. Yours, and your companions’.” He leaned even more forward, his cheek brushed hers and suddenly his skin was aflame where it touched hers. “You need to stop opposing the Legion.” He realised he had spoken with more urgency than he had meant to use and finally, she stirred, turning her head the slightest bit so he could feel her breath on his lips as she spoke.  
“I shall do what I must do”, she said, her voice a hollow whisper. “And you shall do what you must do.”

  
A breeze stirred the air, brushing a few stray strands of her ivory hair into his face. The touch was as light as a feather, yet it made his skin burn and tingle.

“I will have to kill you if we ever engage in battle”, he said slowly.  
As an answer, she just shrugged.  
“I shall regret killing you”, he muttered before he withdrew the knife.

  
Finally she turned her head and their gaze locked, silver eyes looking into obsidian ones.

Time stood still for a second, but the second they realised they had unconsciously leaned in towards each other, a voice hailed her from the top of the rise. With a hissed curse, Vulpes sank back into the shadows and vanished into the darkness between the hills.

Sinking down behind a cluster of boulders Vulpes crouched down, his body pressed painfully into the jagged surface of the rocks with sweat trickling down his back and his heart hammering inside his chest. He was as worthless as any profligate in his pointless lust. With a low groan of helpless frustration mingled with fear and loathing he cupped his throbbing erection and, gritting his teeth, pinched his balls as hard as he could, over and over again until his eyes stung from the effort of keeping his silence.

Jade had watched him go and still shivered uncontrollably, unable to hold back her tears.

“Boss? What are you doing here all alone in the middle of the night, and we’re so close to the Legion, too?”

Then Raul looked at her and realised she was crying.  
Wordlessly, Jade took the offered hand up and looked past him for a second and at the stars that seemed to drown in the darkness of the lake before her.

“Raul?”  
“Hm?”  
“I... I love the wrong man.”  
“Hm. Oh.” The old ghoul tilted his head, but with a shrug, put his arm around her and pulled her close.

Jade wept into his shoulder like a child.

_~*~_   
_These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die,_   
_like fire and powder, which as they kiss consume._   
_~*~_

Crouching behind a burning tent he gripped the hilt of his dagger so hard his knuckles went white. The battle was lost, the camp was burning, the Legate dead, and if the rumours were true, Caesar as well. His world had come to an end, and the only thing he could do now was to take one of the damned soldiers with him to Hades. His back to the Palisade he waited, listening for the steps coming closer. And closer yet. He poised himself, ready to jump and attack. The soldier rounded the corner and Vulpes launched himself out of his crouch like a striking rattlesnake...

  
... only to drop the knife like a hot coal when he careened into the soldier. Never could he have imagined it would be her. He had seen her, of course, from afar, her ivory-white hair flowing behind her as she ran, but he never thought he would actually end up face to face with her. He had tried to avoid that and yet here they were, staring at each other with widened eyes.

“You’re still alive”, she whispered.  
“I am a dead man walking”, he sneered back. “You have the satisfaction of gloating over a defeated enemy.”  
She just shook her head.  
“You are not one to gloat, I guess”, he added, in a softer voice. Maybe here, today, at the end of all things, he could admit it, if only to himself. “Well? Will you kill me nonetheless? You could spare me the wrath of your fellow soldiers. Or the shame of being publicly executed.”  
“I guess I can’t convince you to disguise yourself and flee”, she whispered with narrowed eyes.

  
Vulpes barked out a harsh and humourless laugh. When he looked at her again, her expression had not changed. “Most certainly not. And I must say you disappoint me. I thought you smarter than to suggest something like that.”  
Jade swallowed. “I had to try.”  
“Why?”

He leaned forward, their faces suddenly only inches apart. He could see her jaws work as she tried to think of an answer. Then she opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she utterly surprised him with pressing her lips ever so tenderly onto his own.

Their world vanished into a silent haze when they slung their arms around each other and hungrily devoured each other’s lips, consumed by a fire of a forbidden lust hidden for too long.

He needed all his force of will to tear himself away from her. Holding her by the shoulders at arm’s length he stared hungrily at her, drinking the sight of her flushed face, her moist lips that were slightly parted, her tousled hair stirring in the breeze. Her cheeks were moist and for a second he allowed himself to touch her, resting his fingers briefly on her cheek and running them down her jaw.

“Run”, he said in a husky voice. “If they find you here with me they will kill you too.”  
“Come with me”, she said, her eyes betraying the futility of her words.  
He shook his head, a strange smile on his face. “It will ease my passing to know that there is someone who will mourn my death. Run.”  
Jade shook her head in turn. “If you don’t run, neither will I.”

They stared at each other for a small, painful eternity before Jade pulled a pistol from her belt. A strange, silent calm stood in her eyes and Vulpes felt the same calmness settle inside him when he took the gun from her unresisting fingers. He pulled her behind the tent and knelt down, pulling her down with him and with their limbs entwined they settled down onto the ground between the burning tent and the burning palisade. Her lips tasted of salt as he buried his hand into her hair, bringing the muzzle of the pistol to rest right under her ear.

The burning palisade collapsed moments after the soldiers in the camp heard a double gunshot, sending a shower of sparks high up into the darkening sky, tainted blood-red by a sinking sun.


End file.
